Peripheral Vision
by LaughingSenselessly
Summary: "I feel like…" he falters, and doesn't continue for a minute or two, such a long time that Lydia thinks they've already lapsed back into silence until his voice surges again, "I feel like we don't know each other anymore." She's quiet for a moment because she feels the same about him sometimes. Other times, it feels like they can easily fall back together.(Post 5x05 Stydia Fluff)


**A/N: (Prompt from stydia-fanfiction on tumblr: When Stiles drops Lydia off after meeting with Vallack, all she manages to get out is "Thanks for not letting me go alone." But Stiles has so much more to say to her, and she listens to him. She remembers.). MISSING SCENE 5A.**

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He's tapping on the steering wheel incessantly with his fingers as he drives on her street, chewing on his lip in thought. He's unusually silent. She might think it had something to do with the fact that they just barely escaped an encounter with the Dread Doctors in Eichen, but he's been acting strangely since before they got there. So she sits in the passenger seat with her face turned forward, but she's watching his profile— eyelashes fluttering up and down, gently upward-sloping nose, the movement of the skin on his throat when he swallows periodically— from her peripheral vision, half trying to figure him out, half just… watching.

He silently pulls into her driveway a minute later, the Jeep stopping in its tracks with a lurch and a sound that reminds Lydia vaguely of an angry cat. She watches his hand put the Jeep into park, and then he sinks lower into his seat, blowing out a breath and still looking out the windshield with a glazed look in his eyes. "Bye," he says softly after a moment. He doesn't look at her.

Or maybe he's just watching through his peripheral vision, like she is.

She unclasps her seatbelt and pauses; fiddles with it for a moment. She knows he's expecting her to just get out, go inside; so that the both of them can go back to whatever their lives have become, separate from one another. And she doesn't know what it is, if it's just the fact that it's sad that that's what they are now, or maybe the near death experience of earlier today, or if she's feeling particularly sappy in this moment, because she says, "Stiles?"

He startles a little, as if he hadn't expected her to even talk to him, and his head turns so fast she's sure she hears his neck cracking. "Yeah?"

She takes a deep breath before speaking. "Thanks for not letting me go alone."

His lips part and a crease forms between his eyebrows as he begins to say, "Lydia, I would _never—_ " He cuts himself off immediately. But she already knows what he was about to say: _I would never let you go alone_. And she knows why he cut himself off, because that is a lie. The fact that Lydia would not have to go alone used to be a given. Not anymore. Not since Allison died; and Lydia doesn't exactly know what happened, but it _feels_ like something between her and Stiles died, too.

There's a sticky silence for a moment, probably because they are both thinking of the same thing, and then Stiles blurts out, "Are you hungry?"

"What?" She can feel her eyebrows rising up.

He immediately starts fidgeting with his hands. "I mean… we could get food. If you want."

" _Why_?" She couldn't have for the life of her predicted the strange turn of this conversation.

"Well, Lydia," he says, a little testily now; and she's relieved almost, to hear familiar exasperation enter his voice. "You know, the mental state of hunger, combined with the mental state of believing that food will satiate that hunger, generally leads to the behavior of eating food."

Lydia tries to ignore the flush that rises to her neck because academic talk coming through Stiles' lips has always… done something for her. "Hunger isn't a mental state," she chirps, hoping he won't notice. "It's because of your stomach being empty, sending neurosignals to your brain telling you to eat, making it a physical state and not a belief or desire at all. If we're talking philosophy of mind, Stiles, you should really get your facts right."

He licks his lips, eyes strangely dark, and the strange thought comes to her that maybe he isn't entirely unaffected by this either. "Whatever, Lydia. The point is, I'm going to get food, do you _want to come with me_."

All she hears his _come with me_ , and she's sold. In answer she puts her seat belt back on with a _click_ , and there's a trace of a grin on his face while his hand flexes on the stick shift, pulling out of her driveway. She sees him wince slightly when he's reversing the Jeep, one hand on the back of her headrest, but again she decides not to bring it up. She doesn't want to spoil his mood— it's not often he gets like this. Light hearted. Cracking jokes. Smiling.

Instead, once they turn onto the highway, she asks, "So what _really_ brought this on?"

"It just occured to me we never do anything together anymore." He tries to sound casual and fails. Lydia presses further.

"We see each other nearly every day." She's not sure why she's playing devil's advocate here, except that she's curious if what he's thinking is similar to what she's thinking.

"Yeah, and we talk about the latest monster that's trying to murder us all. That's the _problem_ ," he says, sounding frustrated, "We never just do something for the hell of it. I feel like…" he falters, and doesn't continue for a minute or two, such a long time that Lydia thinks they've already lapsed back into silence until his voice surges again, "I feel like we don't know each other anymore."

She's quiet for a moment because she feels the same about him sometimes. And other times it feels like they can easily fall back together and remember everything within an instant. "So what, you're trying to get to know me?" she asks, a little stiffly.

"I'm trying to remember," he replies softly, gripping the wheel a little harder. "what it _feels_ like to know you."

She doesn't quite know what to say to that.

He runs a hand over his mouth, and they don't say much else on the way to McDonald's.

"This is your idea of food?" Lydia asks dryly, folding her arms as he pulls into the parking lot.

"Do we need to talk about what the definition of food is now?"

"Yes, because apparently you haven't grasped the concept," Lydia retorts. "Something edible."

He rolls his eyes. "Are you really telling me you don't want chicken nuggets, or are you just being difficult? We can always go back to my house. I think we have spaghetti stuff." He turns serious at the end of this, turning to her.

She's suddenly assaulted with the vision of Stiles in sweats and stirring a pan, and her heart is now beating rather fast. "No," she says quickly. "I think this is good." She was, of course, simply arguing for the sake of arguing. It's kind of enjoyable in a strange way when it comes to Stiles. She doesn't like to think what that means.

"Then stop giving me a hard time, for the love of god Lydia," he grumbles, and pulls into the drive-through.

Altogether, the decision-making process of what to get goes rather well after an initial, short-lived but heated spat over the true value of the combo meals and whether they're a psychological marketing gimmick. After Stiles has finished ordering and they're waiting at the pick-up counter, the Jeep suddenly stalls and the engine falls silent. Stiles, cursing, reaches over Lydia's lap to open the glovebox and snatch the duct tape, and then she's kicking her feet up on the dash and trying not to laugh while he opens the Jeep hood. She can hear him swearing as he bangs around in there.

But she can't see him with the Jeep hood up, so she hops out as well. The McDonald's employee pokes her hand out holding a greasy looking paper bag, looking confused. Lydia skirts around Stiles to grab it from the girl, flashing an apologetic smile. "Sorry, we broke down."

The girl looks amused, glances down the lane where there are no cars behind them. "Take your time," she chortles.

"Lydia, hand me another piece of duct tape, will you," Stiles says, voice muffled from where he's bent under the hood. She rips one off and hands it to him. "Thank you." She watches his brow furrow as he considers where to put it.

"So what exactly is the game plan here?" Lydia inquires innocently, reaching into the McDonald's bag to steal one of Stiles' fries. In the corner of her eye she can see the McDonald's employee watching them with amusement. "Just slap tape everywhere until the Jeep turns on?"

He straightens to narrow his eyes at her. "I don't like your tone, Lydia Martin. And yes, this method tends to work." He watches her pop another fry in her mouth, and she thinks he's eyeing her rather hungrily. The fact that she's not quite sure if he's watching the fries or her mouth sends a delicious thrill down her spine.

And she feels a little mischievous. "Want one?"

His eyes snap back to hers. "Hell yes." He reaches for the bag, but she holds it out of reach. He looks at her with a look of betrayal.

"Don't look at me like that," she says with a mocking frown. "Your hands are dirty."

He whines like a kicked puppy and then sticks his head back under the hood, at least until Lydia taps his shoulder. When he straightens up, she offers a fry out with her fingers. He stares at them for a second, and then back at her eyes. She cocks an eyebrow at him.

He leans forward and snags the fry from her fingers with his teeth, then turns back to the Jeep, pulling a long piece of tape from the roll as he munches. She feeds him a few more fries that way, and on the last go his tongue dances over her thumb for a brief moment as he's taking the fry.

She retracts her hand like it's on fire, and he takes a step back, hand going over his mouth. "Uh— sorry." He sounds stricken. "Um." They stand awkwardly for a second. "D'you wanna try starting the Jeep?"

Lydia doesn't think she's ever heard a better idea, and so, with her cheeks burning, she scrambles back in the Jeep and turns the keys in the ignition. The headlights flare to life, and a moment later the hood slams closed and his grin is illuminated in the light as he skips back over to driver's side.

The ride back to Lydia's house is different. They banter back and forth, he eats his burger with a religious zeal, she continues eating his fries, and the Jeep feels full of laughter and warmth. Lydia feels so decidedly cozy by the time he pulls back into the driveway with that terrible screeching sound, that she almost doesn't want to get out.

"You know you should probably get that checked out," Lydia notes when he pulls the keys out of the ignition.

"I'm aware, yes."

"You're not going to, though."

"Probably not."

"One of these days it's just going to die in the middle of the road while you're trying to do something important," Lydia continues.

"It already did," he shrugs, hopping out of the Jeep. Lydia blinks a few times, trying to find a meaning from those words that isn't what some part of her desperately hopes. She can't.

She unbuckles her seat belt and reaches for the handle of the passenger door, but then he's wrenching it from the outside. When she raises her eyebrows at him, he shrugs. "Door's fucked too."

"What _isn't_?" she asks sarcastically. His mouth quirks up.

"Your GPA?" he guesses, tone a little lighter.

She sniffs, accepting his hand to jump out of the Jeep. "True."

He follows her to the front door with his hands stuffed in his pockets and watches silently while she fishes out her keys and unlocks the door. The door swings open and she walks into the dark hallway without hesitation, kicking off her shoes as she goes. She's halfway down when she realizes he's not following. She swallows, hovering in the doorway, and against her better judgment turns her head back to him. He's staring at his feet. He hasn't even crossed the threshold. "Stiles?"

His eyes snap up; he looks conflicted.

Against her better judgment, she _isn't_. Not even remotely; not about this.

She tilts her head at him and lets her mouth form into a smirk. "Aren't you going to follow me into my room or something?"

A smile crosses his lips. "I don't really have an excuse this time."

"Oh, like you had an excuse last time," she retorts, and making her mind up, she throws her purse at his face. He catches it, albeit fumbling a good amount beforehand. "Take my bag up, will you?"

A grin breaks onto his face. "Absolutely." And this time, he crosses the doorstep easily, following her into the hall and then up the stairs to her room.

At that point, they're both standing in her room, and now she feels the awkwardness creep up on her. She hugs herself as Stiles slowly puts the bag down and starts to back out again, mouth opening to presumably bid her goodbye.

But she stops him. "Thanks for not letting me be alone," she echoes her words from earlier in the night, albeit a little quietly. She wonders if he knows what she means this time; she's not talking about Eichen but rather _after_ Eichen; she's saying thank you for not leaving her alone tonight after everything. For getting her mind off it so that she might actually be able to go to sleep tonight in peace.

His lips part slowly at her words, and she knows instantly that he understands by the way his whisky-coloured eyes liquify completely in an expression of tenderness. She's often caught off guard by how he can snap so quickly from his goofy self to _this_. "Lydia," he says finally, taking a step forward, "Remember what I said about trying to remember how we used to be?" She nods. "Well, I don't think we ever forgot."

She feels the same. Completely. She says nothing, though.

"So, thank _you_." He sounds incredibly sincere. "I have… a lot of stuff on my mind lately." He offers her an adorable lopsided smile. "And you made it better. Like you always do."

She knows he's going through something, something he's not telling her; something he's not telling anyone. She can see that from the sadness that seems to creep into his tone in those words, some underlying anguish he's hiding. But even as her lips are opening to form the question, he's leaning forward and pressing a kiss to her cheek, warm and soft and far too brief; and the words die in her throat.

She doesn't find them again, because then he's out the door, and she's standing there just blinking and flushing and _overheating_ because Stiles' lips were just against her cheek and she's not actually entirely sure, come to think of it, that he even realized what he just _did_?

She's rooted to the spot as she hears her front door close moments later and hears his footsteps on the driveway through her open window. And she hears them stop and him distantly say, "Oh, _shit_ ," in a rather frantic tone, and she can't help but giggle.

It's more of a snort of laughter, actually, and she thinks he hears because he pauses and says, "Lydia?"

Composing herself, she rushes to the window and leans out of it.

He's blushing too, standing next to his Jeep. "Should I be worried that you're going to press assault charges or something?" he calls up to her window.

"Maybe," she singsongs down, leaning her elbows against the sill. "Have to keep you on your toes, you know."

"Lydia, if I get put on my toes any more than I already am, I'll be a freakin' ballerina," Stiles complains.

She laughs, and he grins at the sound, his expression melting in a way that it hasn't for such a long time for one absolutely perfect moment. "I used to do ballet," she tells him. She's not sure why she does. Maybe it's that crazy, light feeling in her chest.

He watches her fondly. "Of course you fucking did. Why not?" He shakes his head in disbelief. "I'll see you tomorrow." She can hear the smile still in his voice. And then he gets into the vehicle. She relaxes against the windowsill and watches him reverse out of her driveway, smiles when he waves at her before he drives away. And she's looking out the window for a minute or two even after the hum of the Jeep has faded completely into the distance.

When she turns back to her room, she catches the sight of her reflection in the mirror and is almost startled by the near-alien look of happiness on her face; her flushed cheeks, the wide smile that reaches her eyes and fills them to the brim with a lively sparkle.

She goes about the rest of her night in peace, flopping onto her bed to paint her nails with a philosophy textbook propped up in front of her. She knows, somewhere deep down, that the next day they'll no doubt be so bombarded by the next big supernatural problem that she and Stiles will never talk about this evening again. In fact, a few weeks into the future, Lydia will wonder if it ever even happened, or if she entirely imagined it.

But right now, she can't shake the odd feeling that she just went on a _date_.

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 **A/N: I hope you enjoyed reading it and if so, please do consider leaving a review because I literally LIVE off those! haha**


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